What I'm Reading #23: Love Wins (Rob Bell)

Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived by Rob Bell

Just the controversy surrounding Love Wins (HarperOne 2011) made me both want to read it and not want to read it. I compromised by listening to it on audiobook.

I am irritated by the controversy connected to Bell's book, partly because it feels like a manufactured marketing gimmick and partly because I enjoyed the book but now worry about being judged by my more intellectual friends for liking it. But the verdict is in: I very much like this book and appreciate how Bell has repackaged centuries of orthodox Christian thinking in an accessible, understandable format.

Because nothing Bell says is new, and he himself acknowledges that. He freely admits in the introduction that he isn't saying anything that hasn't been said before. Part of why some of his statements seem radical to certain branches of Christianity is that we don't care about history.

Anyway, the criticism of Bell departing from the Bible is garbage, because this book is profoundly biblical. Bell reframes the thoughts of past theologians like Origen and Gregory in a way that is both theological and pastoral, laying bare the frightening implications of much common thought about heaven and hell.

Bell tackles the individualistic nature of much thinking around salvation and belief, using scripture to broaden the discussion in terms of communities and the redemption of all creation rather than the reward or punishment of individual people based on their faith. At the end, he did something that I appreciated in talking about the difference between exclusivity (where a select few are saved and everyone else goes to eternal punishment) and inclusivity (where everyone is saved regardless). He suggested the existence of an exclusivity beyond inclusivity, one where Jesus "is as narrow as himself and as wide as the universe." Widening the scope of our understanding does not mean diluting the centrality of Jesus' person; in fact, it makes our imagination of him more true to who we know God to be.

While I was in the middle of listening to this book, I went home for a short visit and attended a program at Myers Park United Methodist Church on heaven and hell. Great timing. Four of the pastors at the church (my dad included) reflected upon and then fielded questions on the nature of the afterlife, salvation, etc. Bell's book got some airtime, but all of these pastors are Duke Divinity graduates, so they were more likely to talk about Bell's ancient sources than Love Wins. I appreciated how this program attempted to widen the discussion about heaven and hell while keeping it firmly grounded in the reality of Jesus Christ, something I think Bell also tried to do. If you're interested, you can listen to the conversation here.

Perhaps the best part of the program at MPUMC was when a little girl asked this question: "Does God still love us if we're in..." and pointed down, unable to say the word "hell." The answer, of course, was absolutely yes. So yes, Rob Bell. Love does, in fact, win.